WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency is not deploying its staff and resources to foreign ports where risks of terrorist attacks are greatest, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on Tuesday.
“While CBP took steps to rank ports for risks in 2009, CBP did not use this information to modify where CBP staff were posted,” the report said.
Since 2008, the GAO has reported on the agency’s programs intended to secure the maritime global supply chain — the flow of goods from manufacturers to retailer — and cargo destined for the United States, the report noted.
In September 2013, “GAO found that CBP had not regularly assessed foreign ports for risks to since 2005,” the report said.
However, the first of the overall assessments will not be completed until the end of 2015, it said.
“[CBP] has plans to conduct such assessments by the end of 2015,” the GAO acknowledged.
The US Customs and Border Protection is charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the United States while facilitating lawful international travel and trade, according to the agency’s website. The agency employs more than 60,000 people and on a typical day welcomes more than one million visitors to the United States, inspects 67,000 cargo containers and arrests more than 1,100 individuals.
The report also says that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not performing its management oversight functions on the Visa Security Program (VSP).
“[W]e found, according to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] documentation, that ICE cannot accurately determine the amount of time that VSP agents spend on investigative and visa security activities,” the report said.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, runs the visa program. It deploys personnel to certain US embassies and consulates to conduct security reviews of visa applications.
GAO stated the agency does not distinguish between “the hours logged by VSP agents and hours logged by other ICE officials at posts abroad.”
“Without accurate data to determine the amount of time VSP agents spend on the visa security activities, ICE is not well positioned to determine whether the current allocations of staffing and resources at posts are adequate to carry out the visa security reviews and fulfill VSP’s objectives,” the report concluded.
The DHS officially rejected the GAO conclusions, the report noted.
“DHS did not concur with GAO's recommendations to address these limitations,” it said.
